X-ray Dose Reduction in Electrophysiology

Overview

Allura Clarity is a novel X-ray imaging technology, that combines advanced real-time image noise reduction algorithms, with state-of-the-art hardware to reduce patient entrance dose significantly. This is realized by anatomy-specific optimization of the full acquisition chain (grid switch, beam filtering, pulse width, spot size, detector and image processing engine) for every clinical task individually. Furthermore, smaller focal spot sizes and shorter pulses are used, which are known to positively influence image quality . The primary aim of this study is to verify if a significant reduction in total procedural X-ray dose during electrophysiological interventions can be achieved by using advanced image processing (Allura Clarity).

X-ray dose and image quality are related by laws of physics. Low dose and high image quality cannot be achieved at the same time. However, image processing algorithms can help an x-ray system to acquire images with lower dose without influencing image quality or achieving higher image quality with equal dose. In order to introduce a dose reduction technology the most important aspect is to validate the diagnostic image information. Philips has developed a new algorithm that is capable to process images with similar image quality but acquired at lower dose.

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